Condo Owners Get

HOME FRONT

Recreational Relief

For condo owners wanting to buy out their multi-million dollar recreation leases, the news from Tallahassee is good.

Despite last-minute juggling, maneuvering and a veto by Gov. Lawton Chiles, the state came through for you.

But for owners of homes in communities with mandatory homeowner associations, the news wasn't as good when the regular legislative session ended last weekend.

The attempt to create a commission to hear horror stories about homeowner associations and determine the need for regulating associations got nowhere. The proposal died in committee, replaced by what some are calling a useless alternative.

-- The veto and last-minute maneuvering of the condo recreation district bill didn't hurt, says Rep. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale, the bill's House sponsor.

The revised measure remains intact and Chiles ``assured me he would not veto it,'' Geller said.

The bill is designed to help thousands of condo owners get out from under recreation leases that contain ever-increasing rentals.

The measure does that by providing incentives for owners to ask their city governments to create special taxing districts. Those districts then could sell bonds to buy the leased facilities.

-- On the homeowner association front, state bureaucrats not an independent 11-member study commission will listen to complaints from owners who want limits placed on the power of their boards.

This came after the proposal creating a study commission died in committees and Sen. Ron Silver D-North Miami Beach, inserted a provision in another bill requiring state employees to conduct the study by next Jan. 15.

What agency will conduct the study? The Division of Florida Land Sales, Condominiums & Mobile Homes, the agency already under fire for not responding properly to condo owners' complaints. Division Director Henry Solares isn't optimistic. He doesn't have enough people as it is, he says, because lawmakers won't let him pay decent salaries. This will strain his resources further.